Inclusive Education in Bangladesh: Digging Deeper into Educational Prospects of Children with Disabilities in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper explores multiple dimensions of inclusive education in Bangladeshs targeted schools. It compares the educational performance of children with disabilities to children without disabilities analysing their participation, retention and school completion rates. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis, it tries to explore the existing inclusive education practices at school level for quality and learning. The study uses community resource mapping, open-ended interviews, field observations, a quality assessment framework and literature review as the main research tools. The study found that at the primary level while significant number of children with disabilities enrol, their participation gradually decreases in the upper classes. In the targeted schools, enrolment of children with disabilities was at 35 percent in grade 1, which reduced to 31.5 percent in grade 2, further to 25 percent in grade 3 and to as low as 8.5 percent in grade 4, demonstrating a consistent decline in participation rates (?±11.7). Thus it became clear that significant number of children with disabilities were unsuccessful to get promoted to the next grade or got dropped out every year from the schools. The study findings also suggest that despite the drop outs, teachers in the targeted schools found the enthusiasm and responsiveness of children with disabilities highly positive.